’95–’23

’95

Robert Blocker is appointed the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of Music and Professor of Piano at Yale. Blocker begins several traditions including the annual Convocation and Honors Banquet celebrations that mark the end of each academic year, and the singing of Schubert’s An die Musik at Convocation and Commencement.

’00

The Horowitz Piano Series is established, and faculty pianist Boris Berman is appointed Artistic Director.

’96

The Board of Visitors, later renamed the Board of Advisors, is established to provide advice and counsel for the advancement of the School of Music and to support the School’s mission.

’03

Sprague Memorial Hall reopens after comprehensive renovations, revealing a refurbished Morse Recital Hall, a state-of-the-art recording studio, the Center for Studies in Music Technology, and practice rooms.

’05

Stephen Adams ’59BA and Denise Adams make a transformative gift of $100 million, enabling the School to expand academic programs and give full-tuition scholarships to all students. Renovations are completed on the building at 435 College St., which reopens as Leigh Hall in honor of Abby and Mitch Leigh, who had made a generous gift to the School in 2001. The renovated Leigh Hall houses faculty studios, classrooms, and administrative offices, including the Dean’s Office. The Music in Schools Initiative is formalized with a gift from the Yale College Class of 1957, which had begun discussions in 1997 about creating a national arts policy and helping to bolster the relationship between Yale and the City of New Haven.

’08

Through “Musicathlon: The Conservatory Music Festival,” organized in partnership with the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing) President Wang Cizhao, students and faculty from conservatories and music schools around the world gather for performances one the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Through the festival, the Yale Philharmonia performs in Beijing, Shanghai, and Seoul. The Collection of Musical Instruments becomes part of the School of Music.

’07

The Yale in New York concert series begins presenting concerts at Carnegie Hall and other New York City venues.

’09

The School adopts its first strategic plan, Beyond Boundaries.

’10

The School begins livestreaming concerts free of charge. The Iseman Met Opera Broadcasts series begins thanks to a gift from Yale College graduate Frederick Iseman ’74BA.

’15

A major construction, renovation, and expansion project begins on Hendrie Hall, which reopens as the Adams Center for Musical Arts.

’13

The Tokyo String Quartet retires from the international concert stage and from its longtime residency at Yale. The Brentano String Quartet is named the School’s new faculty quartet-in-residence.

’17

The Adams Center for Musical Arts, a new complex that links the newly renovated Hendrie Hall with the previously renovated Leigh Hall, opens for use at the start of the spring semester. A grand-opening ceremony is held on February 16.

’19

The School celebrates its 125th anniversary. The Yale Philharmonia is set to go on an East Coast tour of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia with the Bach Choir, London. The tour is cancelled as COVID-19 enters the United States. The School moves operations online in order to adhere to health and safety protocols set forth by the University with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

’22

Renovations begin on the building that houses the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, including the installation of climate controls for the Collection’s objects and other major improvements. A major facilitiesimprovement project begins at the Yale Summer School of Music/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, including the replacement of the Music Shed Annex and the conversion of Eldridge Barn to student housing.

’21

Timothy Steinert ’82BA and his wife, Lixia Zhang, make a major gift to the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, renaming it the Morris Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments at Yale.

’23

Robert

The final year

In September 2022, Yale University President Peter Salovey announced Blocker’s intention to retire, after twenty-eight years in the Dean’s Office at YSM, in August 2023. In the final years of his tenure, Blocker had opportunities to appoint more distinguished artists to YSM’s impressive faculty. Major renovation projects were ongoing at Norfolk Festival and at the Steinert Collection of Musical Instruments, and a search was launched to identify Blocker’s successor. As he prepared to step away from the Dean’s Office and to occupy a teaching studio in Leigh Hall, Blocker reflected on nearly thirty years of work and leadership at Yale and the people and music that have surrounded and nourished him. Planning, this past winter, was underway for the send-off event in April. To ask him in a private moment each year how he felt his recital had gone would elicit the same response: “Better than it could have, not as well as it should have”—in that, a healthy measure of modesty. While he has always performed here at Yale and beyond, Blocker has not, perhaps since his earliest days at the keyboard, had anything to prove to anyone. He plays because he needs to, needs the nourishment of the music itself, whether it is a work by Bach, Mozart, or a faculty composer, and wants very much for whomever might be in the audience—whether in Morse Recital Hall or some other venue halfway around the world—to experience the wonder that he did as a child and still does.

Yale Medal recipients since 1995

Ian Mininberg ’34BM (2002)

Stephen Adams, Board of Advisors (2009)

Nancy Better, Board of Advisors (2019)

Don Roberts, Class of 1957 (2022)

Yale Honorary degrees since 1995

Caroline Shaw, 2022

Renee Fleming, 2020

Herbie Hancock, 2020

Willie Ruff, 2018

Marin Alsop, 2017

Stevie Wonder, 2017

Audra McDonald, 2016

Angelique Kidjo, 2015

Joseph W. Polisi, 2014

Ralph Stanley, 2014

John Adams, 2013

Midori Goto, 2012

Youssou Ndour, 2011

Aretha Franklin, 2010

Sofia Gubaidulina, 2009

Paul McCartney, 2008

Emanuel Ax, 2007

Krzysztof Penderecki, 2003

Dawn Upshaw, 2001

Robert Shaw, 1998

Paul Simon, 1996

Wynton Marsalis, 1995